fear is a kind of funny thing. it's hard to put your finger on it most of the time. certain fears are evident. like for me, it would be my fear of elevators. it's not easy taking 10 flights of stairs, sometimes 15 or 20 for the simple fact that getting trapped in an elevator would be one of the worst things that could possibly happen to me...ever. and on the days i'm forced to ride them, it's daunting timing things out perfectly so i can end up in the elevator with a 6 foot 5 buff man who you know would be able to lift me out over his shoulders on to the next floor after forcing open those elevator doors in the case of entrapment. and let's face it, half of america is obese so avoiding elevators with excessively large people is quite a difficult thing to manage. every detail from the weight of a person to the weight of the items they are carrying must be factored into the risk assessment due to the elevator's weight capacity requirements after all. then there's the ocean with it's uncontrollable currents. i still remember getting dragged under the sea and thinking i would die. traumatic events in one's life definitely factor into their fears. but there are fears that we may not even be able to pinpoint. there are often layers to fear. for example, the fear of snakes may really be the fear of being attacked or dying. otherwise a snake is just an animal and not many are scared of seeing snakes on TV but when they are directly in front of you, it is quite a different story. i guess on those terms, my fear of elevators is a fear of entrapment and my fear of the ocean is the fear of losing control. this leads me to my next point which is that there are indeed fears that we may not even really realize until we meet that moment in time where it is revealed to us. i had no clue i was scared of the ocean until i almost drowned and i didn't know i was scared of elevators until i saw a movie where the people got stuck, which lead me to the realization that it would definitely be cause for panic. just makes me wonder what other fears lie beneath? sometimes i get glimpses of fears i didn't know existed or at least had gone unexamined. for me, one of those newly discovered fears would be emotional dependency. i've typically thought of myself as a strong person and until i had that moment of weakness within my heart, i didn't know i could really feel that way. i know we all go through loss and God knows i've lost many people in my life but when someone really makes an impression, it's hard to let them go. they say that the heart is the strongest muscle. i always thought it was the mind but now i believe what they say about the heart...because when the heart wants something the mind just doesn't matter. emotional dependency is scary because then your emotional stability depends on someone who you don't have control over. thus, you can't control your emotions and are losing control of yourself (the only person you really have control over). losing yourself is one of the worst things that can happen to a person, i speak from experience. so i guess the whole point is that as time goes by, there are many fears left to be uncovered and that's definitely a scary thought.